Stupid Scrapper Tricks

[Olly]

10 hours ago, nihilii said:

In CoH specifically, much of the interest lies in rerolling and tinkering with the systems in place. Having one power combo be the best by an overwhelming margin means any attempt you make with something else is just "pretend". You know you've got this one alt in your roster that would do better anyway.

 

At least for me, I get a kick out of making a new alt and thinking "this new project will be the most awesome thing I've ever built for [specific purpose]". But I have to ignore my TW/bio scrapper in order to make this work.

I approach gameplay a little differently. I rarely use my titan/bio for teams. It's my "solo semi-hardcore mode" build. I don't use TW/bio in teams because, what's the point of murdering mobs all by yourself, *when you're in a team*? (speed ITF's not included) My favorite to play when teaming is either defender or blaster. I actually find TW/bio far too slow with the dps on teams, especially if a blaster is around. It is kind of sad that scrapper feels a little out of place in teams now, but that's a different can of worms.

 

I still have loads of fun looking for new builds to try. Currently for solo efforts now that I know what it takes for all the TF's. I'll probably spend more months to see what else with I can replicate TW/bio's success with, while having fun doing so. I don't find it as "pretend", because it won't be exactly the same playstyle or even success. It might not even be the same mechanics. It's just like when you're in a group and have to adjust playstyle based on group composition..except you're solo. 

 

Quote

Entirely arbitrary take: for solo/duo, ~350 DPS is where the game is fun. ~700 DPS breaks the game. The former forces you to think against certain encounters, and you will always welcome the addition of a friend. The latter lets you power through almost anything the game can throw at you without adjusting your tactics, and friends are there to watch you be awesome more than anything.

 

Something to ponder: a lot of builds can hit ~700 DPS solo if they have access to incarnates, temps, and inspirations. In that case, is it still game-breaking? I guess my take on it is that again, do that stuff in solo mode and roll with a team-friendly playstyle or build when you're not solo. And certainly TW/bio is not the only build that can be guilty of "hey look at me I'm awesome". 

Edited May 2, 2020 by Olly

[nihilii]

14 hours ago, Olly said:

Something to ponder: a lot of builds can hit ~700 DPS solo if they have access to incarnates, temps, and inspirations.

That's true. My statement was a simplification more than anything, using the no insps/temps/lore baseline we're used to from Pylon testing. There is nothing inherently special about the 700 DPS number, it's just the number a TW/bio scrapper can hit without insps, temps or lore. Ergo, the baseline applicable most of the time.

 

You can then stack insps, temps and lore on top of that for multiplicative results far beyond what any other build can get with the same tools, especially as TW/bio is also the melee build with the highest access to -RES.

Characters with a baseline of 350 DPS deal roughly 130 damage per second to a lvl 54 AV without resistances once their regen is factored in. Takes several minutes of focused attacking to take them down.

In that same scenario, a baseline of 700 DPS deal 350 damage per second. The same level 54 AV hits the dirt in less than 2 minutes.

The real story here lies in the differential and not the specific numbers, as well as in the respective strength of the enemies (which we can't sum up so easily).

 

When I take on STF Lord Recluse with my average alt, it's a marathon of dealing enough damage to take the towers down faster than my inspirations run out. Quite often, I have to use Lore as main damage dealers while I stick to watching obsessively for repairmen. Victory isn't a guarantee. I'd say most of my roster cannot be sure whether they'll succeed or hit a brickwall trying to solo the STF.

 

Grabbing my TW/bio scrapper for the same task, I just chug a couple oranges and purples, pop Lore and go to town with the towers in melee range, making no compromise save for using the absorb shield preventively. There can be the odd string of bad luck getting me killed, but there lies another strong advantage of overwhelming DPS: if you shave off a 30 minutes fight to 5 minutes, you only have to roll the dice for 1/6th as long. It's never a worry whether the TW/bio scrapper will succeed or not.

Edited May 3, 2020 by nihilii

[Olly]

On 5/2/2020 at 11:13 AM, Olly said:

Something to ponder: a lot of builds can hit ~700 DPS solo if they have access to incarnates, temps, and inspirations. 

I pondered this myself. My gut agrees TW/Bio is a a DPS outlier, but where I ended up was somewhere else. I think  balancing would need to revolve around damage, -res, and defense% numbers. That is, the arbitrary 350 DPS calculation needs to take into effect the other buff/debuff bonuses each set inherently gets.  I'm following a thread on the Blaster forum and someone has done every tf with an ill/rad. Ill/rad has long been known as king of AV/GM killing, but they do so because their effective defense (Perma PA zero chance tohit, essentially) and -res are outliers. 

Edited May 3, 2020 by Olly

[Shred Monkey]

On 5/2/2020 at 10:13 AM, Olly said:

Something to ponder: a lot of builds can hit ~700 DPS solo if they have access to incarnates, temps, and inspirations. In that case, is it still game-breaking? I guess my take on it is that again, do that stuff in solo mode and roll with a team-friendly playstyle or build when you're not solo. And certainly TW/bio is not the only build that can be guilty of "hey look at me I'm awesome". 

My solo toon is my beam/devices blaster.  He's solo'd every GM (except Paladin, but it's not for lack of ability).  He's solo'd a ton of TFs, including LRSF, MsLTF, Apex & Tin Mage.  He generally walks through most content very easily.   And here's the rub;  I almost never play him.    Instead, I play my Fire/Energy blapper almost exclusively.   He brings more damage to a team.  And he benefits more from being on a team.   And solo, I can still do +4x8 and solo AVs.  I just have to pull and kite and use inspirations and strategy a lot more.   And, most importantly, he's just a lot more fun.  (plus, IMHO, he looks much cooler) 

Edited May 4, 2020 by Shred Monkey

[LegionX59]

I soloed Moonfire TF on a lvl 32 (popped to 33 during the first mission) StJ/Nin Scrapper, No insps, temps, deaths. While being essential at work.

[NEW DAWN]

Mender Silos TF, rescue all hostages and keep them alive.

 

[Bill Z Bubba]

Argh. 52 mins into ITF, max diff, no temps, master run rules plus no insps, after taking out the computer and Requiem, I got distracted by a sudden add of two spawns while fighting Rom and he smacked me down.

[hejtmane]

On 5/3/2020 at 9:51 PM, Shred Monkey said:

My solo toon is my beam/devices blaster.  He's solo'd every GM (except Paladin, but it's not for lack of ability).  He's solo'd a ton of TFs, including LRSF, MsLTF, Apex & Tin Mage.  He generally walks through most content very easily.   And here's the rub;  I almost never play him.    Instead, I play my Fire/Energy blapper almost exclusively.   He brings more damage to a team.  And he benefits more from being on a team.   And solo, I can still do +4x8 and solo AVs.  I just have to pull and kite and use inspirations and strategy a lot more.   And, most importantly, he's just a lot more fun.  (plus, IMHO, he looks much cooler) 

Funny back on live before the Posi TF rework I use to use my friends accounts start that TF log everyone out and I would solo that TF using just the standard common IO with a fire/mind blaster it was just so efficient at that TF I parked at level 30 and only farmed that mission. I gained a lot of respect for the blaster build you just need to move and use space and distance to your advantage.

 

Yes it was a pretty fun toon to play and I could breeze through that TF with common IO's

[Bill Z Bubba]

BZB Brute attempt also a failure. Same rules, MoITF settings, max diff, no insps. Got to final Rom in 4th mission, peeled off the healing fluffy, took it out, couldn't peel off the others, autohit fluffy ended me. Took 1:04 to get done with missions 1-3.

 

Edit: Unsure if hybrid melee would make any difference at this point.

Edited May 23, 2020 by Bill Z Bubba

[ClawsandEffect]

I just came back a couple months ago, but I already have a pretty beastly Street Justice/Bio Scrapper. 

 

The classic RWZ Challenge was a cake walk. 

 

I duoed a Lady Grey with my wife's brute. Neither of us had any holds so we had to brute force our way past the mitos in the Hami fight. 

 

I have a planned build for Claws and Effect 1.0 (claws/regen) that hits 47% S/L defense and permahasten with Tier 4 Spiritual and has 724% passive Regen. I expect him to do great things. 

[hejtmane]

22 hours ago, ClawsandEffect said:

I just came back a couple months ago, but I already have a pretty beastly Street Justice/Bio Scrapper. 

 

The classic RWZ Challenge was a cake walk. 

 

I duoed a Lady Grey with my wife's brute. Neither of us had any holds so we had to brute force our way past the mitos in the Hami fight. 

 

I have a planned build for Claws and Effect 1.0 (claws/regen) that hits 47% S/L defense and permahasten with Tier 4 Spiritual and has 724% passive Regen. I expect him to do great things. 

No perma hasten but with no incarnates just IO's I plan to have my katana/wp scrapper at 690% regen 45% smash/lethal defense and 75% s/l resistance.  (that is no DA applied) I am wondering how rugged that is going to be

[ClawsandEffect]

On 5/26/2020 at 6:00 PM, hejtmane said:

No perma hasten but with no incarnates just IO's I plan to have my katana/wp scrapper at 690% regen 45% smash/lethal defense and 75% s/l resistance.  (that is no DA applied) I am wondering how rugged that is going to be

 

Probably pretty solid. 

 

I'd personally be inclined to try and softcap all typed defense, since you get a decent amount from Heightened Senses. That way you can drop Divine Avalanche from your chain and get more damage out of it. 

[hejtmane]

4 minutes ago, ClawsandEffect said:

 

Probably pretty solid. 

 

I'd personally be inclined to try and softcap all typed defense, since you get a decent amount from Heightened Senses. That way you can drop Divine Avalanche from your chain and get more damage out of it. 

May be double the current build sits at 34% e/n and 38% f/c  time to play with IO's  I guess

[ClawsandEffect]

1 minute ago, hejtmane said:

May be double the current build sits at 34% e/n and 38% f/c  time to play with IO's  I guess

It's quite doable. My Claws/WP brute build hits it, and brutes start at the same place scrappers do on defense.